Dinner Recipe

I've had a few recipe requests lately - so here's a quick and easy dinner recipe, and it's yummy too.
Have you seen the Philadelphia cooking cremes? They are sort of new... maybe within the last 6 months or so. I thought, they probably weren't much different from cream of chicken soup or something, to use when you are making a casserole or whatever - but, I decided to try it and I actually really like them. You can pretty much do anything with them, and they are really good to have on hand for quick, last minute meals. They come in a few flavors (Santa Fe, Italian cheese and Herb, Garlic, and plain.) I think that's it. They usually have them near the sour creams or cheese sections in the grocery store. I've tried the Italian Cheese & Herb, and the Santa Fe.
So, here's what I did tonight -
I cut up about a pound of chicken into bite size pieces and sauteed it on the stove top with a little olive oil and a tad of garlic salt. Once the chicken is cooked all the way through, or close to it, I dumped in mixed veggies (Just a bag of frozen mixed vegetables - corn, carrots, green beans, lima beans, and peas)

In the mean time I  boiled a little pasta (I used the spiral pasta). When the pasta was done and the chicken and veggies were cooked, I dumped the pasta and the Italian cheese and herb cooking cream, and kept the burner on for a little bit until it was all mixed and melted together. (* I use Dreamfields pasta - it comes in a black box - it only has 5 digestible carbs)

And... that's it!! Quick and easy - and tastes good.

I have made it a few other times with just the chicken & veggies to do a low carb version. You can also use rice instead of pasta...


Another pasta recipe that's one of my all time favorites - is a penne pasta bake.
Boil the penne, or whatever your favorite shape pasta is. At the same time, have whatever pasta sauce you like to use getting warm in a pot.
I will either use ground sirloin, or sausage, or a mixture of both, and cook it in a pan on the stove. Once it's done, I throw it into the sauce to give the sauce some meat.
Then... when the pasta is done, throw the pasta, meat and sauce into a big bowl and mix it up really good. Pour it into a big baking dish, and cover the top of it with shredded cheese (You can use mozzarella. My favorite is the Italian cheese mix) - and bake it for about 30 minutes on 350, until the cheese is totally melted.
(Depending on how you like your pasta, you may want to cut the initial boiling time short by a minute or two because it also cooks in the oven while it's baking.) And, serve it with a fresh loaf of french bread, and get the good grated Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on top. Yum!

I have to get my kiddos ready for bed, but maybe tomorrow I will post my chicken fettuccine Alfredo recipe - with the alfredo cheese sauce made from scratch!  Definitely not on the diet menu - but it's good if you let yourself cheat.

Speaking of putting my munchkins to sleep, Emma has definitely had some interesting (and pretty funny) sleeping positions the last few days.

Hanging off the end of the bed, like she had a rough night out partying or something. Totally crashed out!

This one is a little hard to see because I only had a dim light on in the room.

And... her nap today on Mimi's couch.